CPU, APU & Chipsets Posts - Page 19

NVIDIA's next mobile processor the Tegra 4 (codenamed Wayne) has been leaked and it packs a punch powerful enough to possibly deliver a knock out punch to its Snapdragon rival.

Built on a 28nm process, the Tegra 4 will feature a 72 core graphics setup which will be able to support a resolution of 2,560 x 1600 with 1080p output at 120Hz.

Unfortunately the Tegra 4 will not see a gain in CPU cores, as it will be keeping the current 4+1 setup. A move to ARM's new Cortex-A15 is all but certain though. One major improvement is the move to USB 3.0 and will be NVIDIA's first mobile chip to do so. Rounding things out is dual channel DDR3L memory which will definitely speed things up. Expect release sometime in early 2013.

Thanks to a new leaked lineup that VR-Zone has gotten their hands on, we should expect no less than 14 different Haswell CPUs from Intel next year. Intel's next-generation of CPUs will be yet another socket, meaning that your existing motherboards will have to be departed if you wish to upgrade. This new socket will be Socket 1150.

The new motherboards will need to sport a Lynx Point chipset in order to support the new Haswell-based offerings. Intel are set to launch six new standard CPUs and eight low-power CPUs. The best of the best will be the Core i7-4770K which will sport four cores with hyper-threading, all churning away at 3.5GHz. Turbo Boost will be on offer to boost the cores up to 3.9GHz, with 8MB of cache backing it up. Intel HD 4600 graphics will be included, with a 1250MHz clock speed.

There will only be one other K series chip in the new Intel Haswell Socket 1150 lineup will be the Core i5 variant, the Core i5-4670K. This chip will be a quad-core chip, sans Hyper-Threading. It will be clocked at 3.4GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz. The Core i5-4670K will also have Intel HD 4600 graphics, but have a very slight reduction in speed to 1200MHz.

Next year is going to be a huge year for smartphones, we should see a next-gen iPhone, Galaxy S IV, Nexus device and many others. Intel is hoping to be a much bigger player in the market and wants to shift from their 32nm technology to 22nm.

Intel are already powering some smartphones, such as Motorola's RAZR i, but they haven't taken much more of the market pie just yet. One of the problems right now is the power consumption numbers, which can't compete with ARM counterparts.

Intel's TriGate technology uses three-dimensional transistor structures that are built to save critical space on the chip, and increase efficiency. Intel have claimed that a 22% to 65% performance increase will be at play when their 22nm chips are compared to their current 32nm offerings.

Intel is getting a lot of press this morning. The latest in the line of news regarding the big blue chip maker is that Intel is completely denying rumors that they are heading to a BGA-only, socketless design for Broadwell and beyond. Intel says that they will support socketed CPUs for the "foreseeable future."

Of course, that's a bit vague, and it's vague on purpose. This way they can recant their statement later if they do decide to go to BGA only by saying it was beyond the foreseeable future. However, the good news here is that the rumor of Broadwell being BGA only should be completely dispelled.

"Intel remains committed to the growing desktop enthusiast and channel markets, and will continue to offer socketed parts in the LGA package for the foreseeable future for our customers and the Enthusiast DIY market," Intel spokesman Daniel Snyder told Maximum PC. "However, Intel cannot comment on specific long-term product roadmap plans at this time, but will disclose more details later per our normal communication process."

VR-Zone China got their hands on what appears to be a legitimate leaked road map detailing Intel's rumored lower power Ivy Bridge CPUs. The new processors are expected to come in the first quarter of 2013, so we may even see a showing of the new processors at Intel's CES booth or press conference.

Let's start with the bottom chip, as seen above. It will come with the Pentium branding and will feature a max TDP of 10W. Sporting 2 cores and 2 threads, the model will not make use of Turbo Boost or HyperThreading and it only features 2MB of L3 cache. The included graphics are just "Intel HD Graphics."

Moving up the line, they have one Core i3 offering in the form of the i3-3229Y, which is a 13W TDP part. It will feature HyperThreading and will come in a dual-core model clocked at 1.4GHz. One of the two i5 offerings, the i5-3339Y, is a dual-core, HyperThreading part that comes clocked at 1.5GHz, with a max Turbo Boost of 2GHz.

The i5-3439Y is similar, with the only difference being a higher max Turbo Speed of 2.3GHz. Finally, the i7 model, i7-3669Y, will start at the same 1.5GHz, but will Turbo all the way to 2.6GHz, all while remaining within that 13W TDP envelope. It will also come with 4MB of L3 cache.

All of the parts feature a 7W Scenario Design Power, meaning that they will draw only 7W if kept at a cooler 80*C. The TDP is calculated with a processor temperature of 105*C, the highest the chip is allowed to achieve.

AMD has a long history of supporting the DIY and enthusiast desktop market with socketed CPUs & APUs that are compatible with a wide range of motherboard products from our partners. That will continue through 2013 and 2014 with the "Kaveri" APU and FX CPU lines. We have no plans at this time to move to BGA only packaging and look forward to continuing to support this critical segment of the market.

Server admins, rejoice. AMD has updated it's Opteron line with more choices that use the updated Bulldozer core, Piledriver. The new Opteron 4300 and 3300 series of processors are destined for the mid-range and entry-level performance segments and give potential customers more choices.

In total, nine new Opteron processors were unveiled today and their specifications range from a 4-core, 25W part, the 3320E, all the way up to the 4386, an 8-core, 95W part. The highest priced Opteron to be released today is the 4376HE at $501, with most of the parts being under $400.

"The Piledriver core architecture shared by the AMD Opteron 4300 and 3300 Series processors provides optimized performance, power and price for today's customer," said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, general manager, Server Business Unit, AMD. "These new processors are ideal for cloud providers, web hosts and small- and medium-sized businesses who want to address their space and power constraints. With a simple upgrade, existing customers can obtain more performance and improved energy efficiency and new customers will obtain compelling value and ROI."

You can read the full press release and get the full details directly from AMD so that nothing is lost in translation.

Intel is on a mission to reduce the power consumption of its x86-based chips. Intel has done this through continual die-shrinks, new architectures, and the Atom processor line. The upcoming Haswell architecture is said to drop power consumption to under 10 watts, as measured by the TDP, but that isn't soon enough for tablet makers.

Intel wants to get their chips into all of the new Windows 8 tablets, but the current Ivy Bridge architecture bottoms out at 17 watts, a bit hot and battery hungry for most tablets. The Surface Pro is a rare exception and is using one of these Ivy Bridge ULV processors, but will have battery life more similar to a laptop than a tablet.

An industry insider is saying that a future Ivy Bridge revision will reduce power consumption, though the exact consumption numbers were not discussed. It's not clear when this new revision of silicon would come, but one thing is for sure, you shouldn't expect it before the end of the year.

Intel's budget line of CPUs has remained based upon the older Sandy Bridge architecture, even though Ivy Bridge has been out for over half a year now. Reports have now surfaced that these low-end CPUs will be updated to the 22nm Ivy Bridge architecture by early 2013, even as Haswell gets close to making an appearance.

The current Pentium G870, G645, and G645T will cease to be produced as Intel makes room in their line up for the Pentium G2130, G2020, and G2020T. Similarly, the Celeron G555, G550, and G550T will be phased out in favor of the new G1620, G1610, and G1610T processors.

Intel is also planning on shipping dual-core mobile Ivy Bridge chips in Q1 of 2013. Haswell is widely expected to make its debut in Q3 of 2013.

It's about time we got some competition out of China, where they're close to unveiling details on a new 8-core processor designed and developed entirely within the country of China. The new CPU is a custom design and ready to take on competitors Intel, AMD and ARM in the PC, server and supercomputer categories.

Development on the chip began over a decade ago in 2001, by Loongson Technology, a group that receives funding from the Chinese Academy of Science. The first processor they developed was the 32-bit Godson-1, which was followed by the 64-bit Godson a few years later and since then, the chips have been used in low-power notebooks since 2008. Late last year, the Shenwei supercomputer was turned on, and powered by the same design.

The latest chip out of the company is the Godson-3B1500, which sports a 1.35GHz clock speed, and is capable of performing 172.8 gigaflops of performance while chewing just 40W of power. The chip is manufactured under a 32nm process, sporting 1.14 billion transistors. Loongson CPUs aren't compatible with Microsoft's WIndows OS, which will hinder its adoption - big time. There are still plenty of places this chip is destined to reach - mobile devices being an absolutely huge market, for example.